


out into the sinful world

by darthjamtart



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthjamtart/pseuds/darthjamtart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren Reynolds is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out into the sinful world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/gifts).



> Spoilers through CM 6x18: "Lauren"

Eight years ago, Lauren Reynolds met Ian Doyle at the Black Shamrock in Boston. Former IRA. Valhalla. There's a wry good humor in his face, a gleam in his eye when he smirks at her across the table.

The profile they have on paper didn't warn her about that.

It's too easy to forget what the guns she acquires for him are being used for. It's too easy to forget what he is. He's not a good person, she knows that, but then, neither is she.

She's got a job to do.

For a few seconds, standing with Declan and his father, she thinks she can change things. Change him. "A warrior, raising warriors," Ian tells her, and there it is: the profile instead of the man. She won't forget, next time.

She takes what she needs and leaves the rest behind. She's not the girl she was at fifteen, lonely, desperate. She won't be this person, either: naive, half in love with a man she thought she knew.

Lauren Reynolds is dead.

Emily Prentiss trusts the profile but knows how to look past it. They all have biases, misconceptions. They've all made mistakes. She knows better than to hold a grudge, in that regard.

She knows that not everyone would understand.

She's been keeping secrets her whole life: snippets of conversation in a foreign tongue she wasn't supposed to overhear or understand; folders passed under the state dinner table, behind closed doors; diplomatic scandals hastily covered up. Her own body is full of stories she can't share.

Her mother tells her she'll regret the tattoo, so she gets another and hides it better.

Ian Doyle wants her body -- he wants it to tell his story. His cuffs on her wrists, his mark on her chest, but she's got a world of secrets he'll never know. She's got people to protect. She knows what to do.

Emily Prentiss is dead.

Third life's the charm.

  
Base image via Google image search, modified by author.


End file.
